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Mumbai, Sept. 21 The stock markets witnessed a record high for the third straight day, with the BSE Sensex gaining by 216.28 points to close at 16,564.23 on Friday.

Intra-day, it coursed through a high of 16,616.84. The S&P CNX Nifty gained by 1.9 per cent to close at 4,837.55.

The momentum of the last few days continued and was further buoyed on Friday by the lower inflation figures reported by the Government (3.32 per cent for the week ended September 8 from 3.52 per cent a week earlier).

FIIs, net buyers at Rs 1,629 crore, continued to lead the rally, while domestic institutions remained on the sell side.

“A possible explanation for the markets going up at even this level is the sheer power of liquidity that is driving up stocks,” said Mr Manish Sonthalia, Vice-President (Equity Strategy), Motilal Oswal Financial Services.

“There was value buying in IT stocks, as they had dipped yesterday,” said Mr Jignesh Desai, Head of Institutional Sales, SBI Cap Securities.

The BSE IT index made a 0.86 per cent gain on Friday.

Among the indices, bigger gains were posted by oil and gas (up 3.55 per cent), PSU (1.28 per cent) and realty (1.54 per cent).

Topping the Sensex gainers were Reliance Industries (3.75 per cent), followed by Bharti Airtel (3.08 per cent), SBI (2.78 per cent), Reliance Communications (2.28 per cent) and Reliance Energy (2.22).

There was buying at individual counters based on specific news of corporate business activity.

“There has been heavy buying in Reliance Industries in the past few days, and today’s news about their striking oil in the KG basin was a trigger for further buying interest,” said Mr Desai. Reliance Natural Resources Ltd (RNRL) gained 35 per cent on news that it has applied for gas distribution licences.

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